Girl, Mother, and Queen
by OldFashionedGirl95
Summary: In which Narnia's eldest Queen, the one sometimes called "The Gentle," calms fears, comforts sorrow and sings lullabies for a no-longer-little Queen and a motherless Prince, and Lucy decides what to wish for if they ever catch the White Stag. Revised!


**Second AN: I posted this the same day as my first draft (badbadbad, I know), without much beta help. So, many thanks to Laura Andrews and to Rose and Psyche for raising some very good questions, and I have duly revised it. Sorry about that. Do review, though, if you've the time. I see from the stats page that there are quite a few readers, but I've no way to know if you liked it or hated it. Oh, and "Iris" for Mrs. Lune is borrowed from rthstewart.**

**AN: I wasn't sure I wanted to post this, but WillowDryad and Rose & Psyche encouraged me to, and so here it is, featuring a frightened Lucy, a motherly Susan, a grieving Lune and Corin, a missing Cor, and a Talk.**

**Disclaimer: I've lost my imagination and can no longer invent even creative disclaimers. This story has been disclaimed. You have been informed of the fact. Carry on.**

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><p><em>Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised.<br>_Proverbs 31:30

_An unseen observer in the hall near Queen Lucy's rooms that afternoon (not that Her Majesty's guards would have permitted a spy, but supposing there had been one) might have heard a muffled shriek from the Queen's chamber, and a few moments later, might have seen the Female Hound and the Alder Dryad attendants to the Queen exit her chamber, conversing between themselves in low tones, and then seen them depart in opposite directions. But by this point, our observer would most certainly have been ferreted out by the Queen's guard and, courteously but firmly, escorted from the premises, and thus might never have learned what had transpired behind the oaken door of the chamber._

It was a spring afternoon, the sort with warm sunshine and a bit of a chill in the breeze, and I was overseeing the inventory of the remaining winter stores. Four-year-old Prince Corin was at my side, a wrinkly apple clutched in one dusty hand, a now-wrinkled handful of my skirt in the other. He had barely let me out of his sight for the past fortnight, but I minded not. My young, motherly heart had held affection for the young prince (and his brother, whom I think of often) since the first time I saw them, just a few months after our coronation, when the Archenlandish court brought the newborn princes to Narnia for a Centaur blessing. We had but newly revived old Narnian-Archenlandish relations, and were sorely grieved when the elder prince, Cor, was stolen. Sadly, we yet had no ships to send to our cousins' aid, the searchers came back empty-handed, and nothing more has been heard of Crown Prince Cor to this day. May the Lion be with him, wherever he is.

We rebuilt the bonds of friendship between Narnia and Archenland. Peter and Edmund got on quite well with the jolly King Lune, (who seemed so much older than we when we were crowned but really is not) and Peter, especially, appreciated his wisdom and experience. I was close to King Lune's wife, Queen Iris, and I am afraid I rather doted on the prince. When he was beginning to talk, he dubbed me, "Aunt Yu-yoo" and I loved it. We are not blood relatives of Lune and Iris, as the royal line once was, but we have been close as family, and the Queen's death was a sore blow.

She had been ill some time, an illness that defied the best Centaur leeches, and I had been down to visit her the week before, but it still was something of a shock when it happened. A swallow brought the word that the King and Prince of Archenland were approaching the castle with a very small party. We hurried down to meet them, and soon saw them, Corin and Lune on one horse, two others with them, all dressed in black. Their faces, usually jolly and animated, were lined with grief and solemn. The little prince slid off his father's horse as soon as they pulled up, and he ran up to me and wrapped his arms around my legs, sniffling and manfully trying not to cry. "My Momma's gone to Aslan's country," he said, and would say no more.

That first night I held Corin, stroked his tousled golden curls, and soothed him slowly to sleep. When at last his weary eyes fell shut, I slipped out into the sitting room where his father sat, staring into the fire.

"To sleep, perchance to dream," said I, quoting an ancient saying of King Frank. Lune rose and went and looked at him a long time; then returned, easing the door shut and coming to where I stood by the window, thinking of the motherly woman I had loved.

"He loveth thee so," he said, and I turned to him. "His mother did wish us to come here, that thou mightest look after him. Wilt thou?"

So many times had I escaped to Anvard, so many times had Queen Iris listened to my frustrations in those first years of ruling, and comforted me. She had been gone but a few days and already I missed her terribly. "Of a certainty I shall. 'Twill be mine honor, King Lune." I turned to go. "But thy son sleepeth and so must thou. Good even, cousin."

"Good even, Susan."

The next day we all rode down to Anvard with them for the funeral and burial. Corin clung to me the entire time. Perhaps I was clinging to him. But when all had been settled as quickly as could be done, we invited the king and the prince back up to Narnia with us, and we opened our castle to the lonely pair, that they might escape the halls of Anvard for a time. Lune spent much time sitting on his balcony or by the fire, thinking—remembering—grieving. I believe the lords Dar and Darrin took care of business in Archenland during those weeks. The four of us continued with our work, and I went on with the spring cleaning and renewal of the Cair. Prince Corin followed me everywhere and sometimes snuck into my chamber at night. Now he watched, solemn and wide-eyed, as I supervised the inventory. I hoped he would soon regain the carefree, cheerful attitude that had been such a part of him.

A Female Hound came bounding up, one I recognized as Lucy's guard, Bleu. "Your Majesty," she said, and those nearest to me paused in their work to hear. I bent to hear her low tones "The Queen Lucy urgently requires your presence in her chambers." She lowered her voice even further and added, "We do not believe there to be any danger, but Her Majesty is quite distraught."

"Thank you, Bleu," I said, and raised my voice. "There is no cause for alarm, but I must excuse myself. Branwen will supervise the remainder. Carry on, my people." I handed my scroll and charcoal to Branwen and followed Bleu into the hall.

"Your Majesty," said Bleu, "Your sister asks that you come alone."

I had grown so accustomed to Corin's presence that I had not thought of it. Now I bent to his level and spoke in coaxing tones. "Corin, if thou'lt go with Bleu, she shall take thee to the kitchens and Cook shall give thee some pie."

"Apple?"

"Yea, Corin. Bleu, wilt thou tell Cook I ordered it, and after take the Prince to join one of the Kings?"

"Certainly, Your Majesty. Let us be off to the kitchens, Your Highness."

Corin put his hand on the Hound's shoulder and they departed together. I gathered up the skirts Corin had released and hurried down the hall, up a spiraling stair, and down a hall far longer than I wished it to be.

I pushed open the heavy, oaken door, and found Lucy—laughing, infallibly optimistic Lucy, whom the people had started to call "Lucy the Valiant" that last winter when she rode out in the deep snow to join Peter and Edmund and their discouraged army, fighting a band larger-than-anticipated of evil creatures, and had gone among the soldiers and given them new courage against the enemy—sitting on the bed, white-faced and terrified, her arms wrapped around her updrawn knees.

"Lucy!" I hurried across the room and put a hand on her shoulder. "Lucy? What's wrong?"

She raised fearful eyes to mine, and I saw that she had been crying. "I think I'm dying, Susan."

In shock, I sat down. "Did someone attack you?" I wrapped my arms around her and she burrowed into my shoulder. "What's wrong, Lucy?"

"I'm bleeding, Susan, and it won't stop. I took a drop of the cordial, and it stopped the pain, but I'm still bleeding." She clung to me. "I thought it would heal anything. I'm scared, Susan." She raised her head, and her lower lip was trembling as it had not in a long time.

I looked at my thirteen-year-old sister and a picture flashed into my mind of another crying girl—this one younger and black-haired—in her mother's bedchamber, and I remembered a certain, awkward conversation. _Oh. Oh dear._ I hadn't exactly been planning to discuss this with Lucy myself. But who else would be better? The Dogs, for one, would probably instruct her in the marking of trees with her personal scent! No, I was the only one. _Right, then._

"Lucy, darling," I began, stroking the tangled golden curls and silently begging Aslan for help. "You aren't dying, dear. At least, not now."

"But the cordial didn't work!"

"It heals any injury. You aren't injured, sister of mine. . . ."

Somehow, I found the words to explain things to her simply, as near as I could remember them being explained to me. And when I had done, she laid her head in my lap and we were quiet for a time. Then she said, "Susan?"

"Mmm?"

"Do you remember Mum?"

"Yes."

"Tell me what she was like, please?"

My heart ached for my little sister, who had been so very young when Aslan called us out of England. "Well," I said, taking a deep breath to stop the tears, "People used to say that my voice sounded like hers, but you always looked more like her. She had golden hair like yours, and her eyes were very blue. Father used to call her the light of his life, and when he came home at night he would pick her up and swing her around and kiss her, and she would laugh."

"Was he a King?"

"No, but sometimes he called Mum his queen. And then we'd all sit down around the table and Becky, the cook, would bring in the supper."

Lucy had closed her eyes. "And after supper?"

"We would all go undress and get into our nightgowns and then beds. We shared a room then. Do you remember?"

"I think so."

"Well, Mum would come in and we'd say our prayers, and then she'd kiss us goodnight, and sometimes she'd sing a song."

Lucy smiled, almost asleep. "Mmm. Where is she now?"

"Very far away, Lucy."

"Someday, I'd like to see her again. If I ever find the White Stag who gives wishes, I think I'll wish to see Mum again."

"That might be a good wish."

She was quiet so long that I thought she'd fallen asleep and moved to get up, but she grabbed my hand and said, "Sing to me?"

And out of the depths of my memory there rose an English song, a song of parting, a song our mother had sung.

_And a hidden observer in the Queen Lucy's chamber (though we know of course that no such observer could slip past a Hound guard) would have seen a dark-haired young woman nearly seventeen years of age bent lovingly over a golden-haired, no-longer-little girl of barely thirteen, singing her to sleep with a voice once said to be like their mother's and a song once sung by lovers on English hillsides, so very far away._

Fare thee well, my dear, my own turtledove  
>I must leave thee for awhile,<br>But though I go, I shall come back again,  
>Though I go ten thousand miles.<p>

_The youngest Queen was asleep, and the elder Queen, who though young was mother at times to all, eased away, still crooning under her breath. She drew the curtains and tenderly pulled the counterpane over her sleeping sister; then she slipped out and pulled the door to, for she, who could clearly remember her mother, was relied upon by two golden-haired children who could not, and there would still be bruises to bandage and recountings of adventures to hear, and then perhaps stories of another beautiful mother and lullabies from Archenlandish hills. But she did not mind. Can there be any lovelier calling than that of mother?_

_~ consumatum est ~_


End file.
